Jump

19th of October

Waking up at five and then stand around waiting for an hour, just out of bed and freezing in the Kathmandu morning, to find out that the booking agency messed up our booking wasn't really what made a good start of a day. This was although a good start for a deep distinct sigh filled with hopelessness, one of those that makes everyone around understand and then pat you on the back for comfort. The daylong bus ride from Pochara to Kathmandu for a chance to bungyjump was more and more turning out to be in vain.

This was not a time to give up hope, but a time to try anyway. This was a time to take an other hours long bus ride for a remote chance of contacting the booking agency and making them sort things out. This was a time to go where a landslide is considered as much a road as anything else and were fear of heights is a biological misstep only mutated by foreigners.

Instability did through out this trip become more associated with the country then anything else. Other contenders to this number one spot were the bus, who had to be repaired in some way at each resting place, and the passenger next to me who felt that short impulsive bounces against the closest environment was a fun way to spend four hours in a bus.

The Instability in the country was growing more obvious with each stop for a police control. I think they were police checks at least, they all started with a militarly dressed, bitter looking man entering and peering suspiciously at us passengers from under his cap. On his chest could I read the proud letters of "Armed Police Force", but by the looks of it was he only armed with a piece of pink paper which he handed to the driver. It felt like a bad idea, but each time I wanted to ask him if an object, only capable of inflicting minor paper cuts, was considered a weapon. I never did, but that thought usually kept me busy until he left.

There was a lot of colorful papers being handed back and forth among drivers and polices. Even some keys changed hands but it was all to complicated to be understood. The truck in front of us, carrying what looked like sand, was regularly checked with long iron rods for anything else hiding in it. This kept my mind busy due to the flashback from old Robin Hood movies where they always managed to sneak by the guards on the back of a transport of hay.

In short, we got to the resort for bungyjump, we got in contact with the booking agency and everything worked out. All of us jumped eventually and after a meal we headed back home.

It was getting dark when we began our trip back. I was still shaking a bit from the jump and my body hadn't really recovered yet. Apparently couldn't the weakest part of my body cope with the jump and still looked a bit purple. This being my eyelids, with it's broken blood cells looking like a bad make up, or as I preferred to call it; a bad beating by my fellow traveler who bounced next to me on the bus.

I could see the ground coming against me, with every part of me regretting the decision to jump. Absolutely no control, no way to get anywhere but down, and then up again. My fellow traveler had told me about a yoga teacher she had that, during a session of "laughing yoga" had suddenly stopped the teaching and focused his eyes on her. He then, in a teaching but still death serious way, said: "Those who don't laugh, they do the suicide!"

So I laughed, from the second my feet left the safety of the bridge, to the time they put be on the bed below. In every bounce could the people waiting to jump see my twisted face, grinning like mad man and filling the gorge with a crazed laughter. The chock of adrenaline had no where to go, I felt no pain or pleasure. Only excitement. I still feel it when I think about it, even if it's just a fraction of the original feeling.